UB Anderson Gallery to present "Ode to Michael Goldberg: Selective Thievery and the Practice of Looking"

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery will present the memorial exhibition, "Ode to Michael Goldberg: Selective Thievery and the Practice of Looking" Sept. 13 to Jan. 18. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, will open with a public reception to be held from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13.

Michael Goldberg (1924-2007) is known for his large-scale abstract paintings, which reflect the early influence of Abstract Expressionism on his 60-year-long career. In addition to a group of important paintings from the university's collection, loans of artwork from several private collection and public institutions, many shown publicly for the first time in years, will provide a unique opportunity to observe the development and evolution of the artist's life and work through drawings, paintings and prints dating from the 1940s to the 1980s.

"Ode to Michael Goldberg" traces the evolution of Goldberg's work beginning with the early cubist inspired drawings of the 1940s, the monumental nonobjective paintings of the early 1960s, the abstracted landscape and still-lifes from the mid- to late 1960s, monochromatic paintings of the 1970s and ending with his use of grids in the 1980s. The grid was the structure that informed Goldberg's most recent work, which was exhibited at Knoedler & Company, New York, shortly before his death in December of 2007.

Throughout Goldberg's intensely productive career, he was influenced by a wide range of art and artists, including his contemporaries in the field of visual arts. He also took inspiration from genres of art as diverse as Renaissance painting, jazz music and architecture. Goldberg utilized these sources to continually push abstraction into new and exciting directions. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Goldberg helped form part of what came to be known as the New York School -- a dynamic group of highly influential artists and writers who were living and working in New York City. This exhibition includes collaborations between Goldberg and the prominent New York School poets Frank O'Hara and Bill Berkson, as well as paintings in UB's collection by Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan and Norman Bluhm, members of the New York School with whom Goldberg was closely associated.

"Ode to Michael Goldberg" will be accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Amber Smith and Goldberg's close friend and well-known writer and curator Klaus Kertess, which provide insights into the artist's career, as well as a fresh analysis of the artist's symbiotic relationship with his dealer, Martha Jackson, formerly of Buffalo and founder of the prestigious Martha Jackson Gallery in New York City, which was renowned for its representation of young American artists struggling for attention in the rapidly developing Post-World War II art market.

The catalogue publication was made possible by a generous donation from David K. Anderson.

UB Anderson Gallery is supported with funds from the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Anderson Gallery Program Fund, and UB Collection Care and Management Endowment Fund.

UB Anderson Gallery, located at One Martha Jackson Place near Englewood and Kenmore, is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. For more information, please call (716) 829-3754.